kisses-blood-valentine
by toomanycurls
Summary: Her name is Bernice Fenwick. She lives in a flat with her twin brother, Benjamin Fenwick. She loves Evelyn Fairbanks, a muggle. Today is Valentine's Day. She will tell Evvie about magic today.


"You have to let me see her!" Benjy yells outside the room Bernie occupies. "You fascists can't keep her locked up – I… I don't care what she's done!" Vague shouting from unknown voices are giving some sort of response but all Bernie wants to do is shut her eyes and drown out the noise.

Benjy's voice is bouncing off the walls and into her mind causing Bernie to shriek with her ears covered to both block him and keep him in. His cries consume and saturate Bernie – she just wants a respite from this immediate prison she is in. "Just shut up!" she screeches with her eyes tightly shut.

The noise is suffocating, as if a thousand thousands words push down on Bernie until she's ready to collapse until the world goes still, just for a moment but that is enough. Her eyes open and the room is heavy with silence with no light but a soft glow emanating from the red curtains at the window. Going to the rich fabric, Bernie feels for the break in fabric but cannot find an opening where one should be. It seems ludicrous that someone would make a window covering that could not open so Bernie reaches for her wand only to find it missing.

She is naked without her wand and is suddenly thankful for the curtain and the privacy it provides. Staring at the royal red curtains, Bernie calls to mind the rose petals floating atop water in the bath. Evelyn will be there soon and all must be perfect as she confides the last mystery of her love, that which she guards closest of all else – her magic. The petals swirl across the water and cause it to spill onto the floor, staining the carpet red with blood. _No._

"Evvie!" Bernice cries out as she feels hot sticky blood drip from above. _So much blood_. Soon the walls are covered and Bernie feels the urge to vomit overwhelm her as she retches. As the acidic liquid leaves her the room returns to its previous state.

Her breathing haggard and uneven, Bernie draws her knees up to her chest and revisits what she knows to be truth. _Her name is Bernice Fenwick. _She lives in a flat with her twin brother, Benjamin Fenwick. _She loves Evelyn Fairbanks, a muggle._ Today is Valentine's Day. _She will tell Evvie about magic today._

Bernie loves the way Evvie kisses her goodbye. The girl knows nothing of heartache or pain for her love is unabashed and unfettered. A quiet laugh leaves Bernie as one of Evvie's long fingers gingerly tugs her dark, kinky hair. "Why do you have to leave?" Evvie asks with her arms still around Bernie as they stand on the stoop.

"It's Valentine's Day and I'm putting something special together for you," Bernie purrs as she presses her forehead against Evvie's milky skin.

An impatient sigh escapes Evelyn before she can stop herself. "It's all just… commercialism and the patriarchal chauvinism being pushed onto women." She pauses for a fidgety moment as a cycle of anger, helplessness, and defiance rush through the young woman. "Just promise me there won't be cards or any of that crap."

"No crap," Bernie assures her with a smile. "But your butt better be there by seven, sharp," she says with a swift kiss on Evvie's cheek.

Evvie watches Bernie take each step towards the street backwards so they can gaze at each other longer for a few moments longer. They are not secretive about their love, not in 1979 when feminism is on everyone's mind. Two women kissing outside Evvie's building is just another Wednesday morning in that neighborhood. For Bernie, she only hides her relationship from one person – Benjy. She knows that he is an open-minded man but Bernie does not want to mix her magic and muggle life until she's ready.

Secrecy puts a wedge between the previously inseparable twins - sharing a flat does not mean that Bernie and Benjy partake in one another's life. As she enters with a _pop_ from apparition, Bernie sees Benjy at the table with a cup of tea in his hand and a frown on his face.

"Thought you'd be home last night," Benjy comments with his dark eyes taking in her appearance.

She expects the concerned brother approach as it is his favorite avenue of attack. "I was out late and I stayed with a friend," she tells him with most of the conviction that truth brings.

Benjy wants to tell his sister about Death Eaters and his job spying for the Order but knows that his silence is what keeps her safe from most of the danger. "It's not safe to be out without coming home, Bernie," he says with a voice full of emotion. "You spend a lot of time _out_," Benjy adds under his breath.

"Look," Bernie snaps, her patience already thin. "It's my business where I go or what I do. I don't need your guidance over my life."

Now officially in a huff, Benjy rises to his sister's temper. "It is my business if my own sister is running about acting like she's got something to hide."

"I ain't got nothing to hide – just nothing to share with _you_," she shouts without thought for the neighbors and how an argument might disrupt their day. The fraternal twins have been at odds in one form or another since their parents died some six years back. First they compete at Hogwarts on opposing Quidditch teams – Bernice in Ravenclaw and Benjamin in Hufflepuff. Towards the end of their academic life, they fight over what to do after school. Bernie wants to join muggle social movements where Benjy is concerned about the proliferation of dark wizards in England. They pick their separate lives but settle on a common living space – it is what their parents would have desired.

Bernie's words cut her brother as he is all too aware of the distance between them. He tries to find a way to express his desire to be close again, to tell Bernie they are family and should be close. Instead he takes another sip of tea and stares at her for another moment, seeing only how much she looks like their mother. The tepid liquid sparks the right words but when Bernie sees that Benjy is about to speak she cuts him off with, "I don't need you to watch out for me or tell me what to do. I'll do as I please."

"I don't need you, goddammit!" she yells into the void of her life. Sobs overtake Bernie as tears splash down her face. Silence answers her proclamation and she does not care for its reply. In an attempt to quiet her unrelenting cries, Bernie raises her fingers to her lips and presses firmly against them. She feels something moist and foreign on her lips and sees a dark red smudge on her index finger.

Lipstick. Except Bernie does not wear lipstick. This is strange.

The thought vanishes as her mind snaps to the person who does wear lipstick – Evvie.

Evvie with her ruby lips, always in a smile when not pressed against Bernie's lips. Those lips which are such a beautiful contrast against her creamy skin. They are a couple made for contrasts though. Evvie a muggle, Bernie a witch. One with skin the color of a cow's milk, the other a shade of bitter cacao. One dead and the other alive.

No. Not that last one. Bernie shakes her head and moans, "Please not the last one."

Bernie is on her knees, pleading while the masked faces look down on her trembling figure in unfamiliar surroundings. Blood drips from her nose and the coppery taste is invasive. Hands bound, she is unable to stem the flow. "I swear, I don't know about no order," she repeats, for what feels like the hundredth time. The men who surround her persist with a cycle of pain and questioning. Bernice thinks the men are the same ones she's seen lurking around rallies where she and Evvie protested for better treatment of women – that is until they use magic on her.

The blows made with hands were nothing compared to the pain of the cruciatus curse. "Please," Bernie cried out with what voice she could muster. "I'll do anything… won't tell no one… just let me leave." Looking around the room, Bernie sees the grocery bag torn on the floor and decides to look at the memories she hoped to make that evening. Roses are visible as they peek out from the brown paper bag along with strawberries, champagne, blood…

There is so much blood on her hands and it will not wash off. Scrubbing does nothing to make the red stain of life leave Bernie's skin. Eyes turning downcast to the cold tile, Bernie sees more blood but this time in drops that create a path out to the bedroom in her hotel suite. In the luxurious bed, she sees Evvie splayed on the bed. Her heart palpitating in its cage, Bernice finds herself suddenly over her love. The slashes are everywhere on Evvie's delicate skin – some shallow and pink while others go unnaturally deep.

Looking for an assailant or weapon she can give to the police, Bernie rummages through the mussed blankets and pillows. Her wand, still slick with blood, is the only instrument recovered. The scream of horror, of repentance leaves Bernie in a moment. "I'm so sorry," she cries, taking one of Evvie's hands in hers. "I never meant to hurt you," she weeps with her head bowed as if in prayer.

Her head jerks towards the abysmal ceiling as she yells, "It wasn't me when I hurt you," to no one in particular.

Bernie is ready to leave – she's done all she can and should hurry onto her plans for the evening. "We've got all we're going to get out of the blood traitor," a man says behind her. Bernie pays him no mind as she gathers her bag off the dirty ground. She feels tears fall from her eyes but their occasion escapes her. A feeling of blissful purpose imbues Bernice and she leaves for her nighttime plans of love with Evelyn.

Lost in a world of satin sheets and tender touches, Bernie loves each gasp and sigh from Evvie as they declare their passion for each other. The trail of kisses leave gooseflesh in their wake – each lingers longer than the last. Beads of sweat on Evvie's skin turn into trickles of blood beneath Bernie. "Don't leave me," she calls out with a shrill note. "I'll save you, baby."

"Will you shut it?" a man in the black and white striped uniforms of Azkaban prison yells. "Some of us would like to _sleep_." He leans through his bars and peers at the doorway to the right until a dementor floats by, causing a retreat into the darkness of his cell.

"She won't last long," another prisoner calls out across the way. His dark brows were just visible through his scant window. "The innocent never do."

A/N:

This is the weirdest thing I've ever written. I blame it on watching Pulp Fiction one too many times and watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Those definitely inspired the style and linearity of the story. A huge thanks to crestwood (Joey) for his help with my first try purposefully writing a black character. I would love to know what you think happened in this (to see if it's at all discernable).


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